"We always say that reason must be uppermost...:" Religious Choice and Rational Thought in the Lives of Catholic Convert Women

Protestant women from New England who converted to Catholicism in the 19th century feared their choice would be judged “irrational”; that those around them would argue that, being more inclined to irrationality than men, they had been more easily lured into a similarly-irrational church by seductive priests and sumptuous artwork. As a result, many of these converts emphasized their rationality in defending their decision. Their emphasis on reason was not, however, simply an effort to defend an unpopular decision, but rather the framework in which they placed their religious lives. Using the personal writings of Jane Minot Sedgwick II, Ruth Charlotte Dana, Sophia Ripley, and their network of elite New England converts drawn from Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, and the Episcopal Church, this paper argues that appeals to reason were not only important for a convert’s defense of her religious choice, but also that reason was a vital part of the conversion process and the post-conversion life. Having long cultivated independence, self-possession, and rational thought as markers of good character in their social world, these women saw their decisions as rational and believed rational thought to be a vital goal of Catholic life. When they defended these decisions, reason was not merely a convenient justification, it was an honest representation of their process of conversion. Indeed, these women believed it was only through reason that they had come to embrace Catholicism.